


Their Fatal Flaws

by adaptivemanipulator



Category: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (Video Game), I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - Harlan Ellison
Genre: Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Mental Institutions, Multi, Panic Attacks, more to be added - Freeform, pretty much every minor character from the game
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 19:42:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16729527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adaptivemanipulator/pseuds/adaptivemanipulator
Summary: An exploration of the last 5 humans on Earth and their pasts. The pasts and flaws that lead them to AM.





	Their Fatal Flaws

**Author's Note:**

> Just to put it out there - English isn't my first language so there might be a lot of grammatical mistakes. Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy reading this! Reviews and tips and all that jazz are very appreciated! I haven't written in years and it's never been something I'm good at but I had fun with this. Gorrister is also my favourite human ooof

It happened in an instant.

Almost too quickly. By the time he’d realized what happened the echo of the slap had died out, leaving both of them in deafening silence. His mind took a moment to reflect on what his eyes were currently looking at –

Glynis, his wife, _his oh-so-beautiful wife_ , holding her reddening cheek, her body frozen and eyes betraying fear. Neither of them even remembers what they were arguing about. Yelling and name calling wasn’t a rare occurrence by any means, maybe a knocked over utensil, but it would always end in profuse apologies and a delicate embrace. Not this time.

Gorrister looked at his right hand as if it had destroyed the entire world as he knew it. Then back at Glynis. _Oh God, what had he done…?_

“Glynis, honey— “

His outstretched arms were met with a silent panic, his wife backing away like a wounded animal. Gorrister felt his chest tighten. He wanted to apologize, he wanted to let her know how sorry he was, he wanted to hold her and stroke her hair to assure her she’s okay. He knew her experiences with the men before him. He knew that’s why her mother would insult Gorrister every chance she took, why she tried to take Glynis home so many times, why she was completely justified with hating him--

Glynis had shut the kitchen door behind her, her footsteps becoming less and less audible. Gorrister put his arms at his sides and followed his wife when their bedroom door abruptly met his face. He was about to knock, or at least call for her. He seemed to freeze in place when he heard it.

Sobbing. Hyperventilating. Hell, he could hear Glynis’ _shaking_.

She was having another panic attack. It had been the first time in 2 months. The truck driver wasn’t the best at comforting but always seemed to calm his wife down in those times – tight holds, back-rubs, forehead kisses – he would do everything he could just to make it stop. He fondly remembered that one time he cried along with her. Glynis never let him live that down, but it made her happy and that’s what mattered.

Gorrister couldn’t bear to look at his wife in the eyes again. He turned on his heel and, passing their pet cat (who genuinely looked confused), went to the only place he knew could be some sort of comfort.

“’Peace-maker’, my ass.”

He slurred roughly as he tilted his head back and took another swig of whiskey. It was a cheap no-brand, the smell alone made him gag. But it didn’t matter. It would make him drunk the fastest, possibly destroy his liver on a larger scale. It’s what he deserved, wasn’t it? His father-in-law would be proud of him.

-

“Oh, sweet Jesus!”

The next morning Edna and Harry had come to visit. They found Gorrister passed out against the back door of his truck with a few glass shards dug into his knuckles, the blood already dry. Vomit stained his shirt and the corners of his mouth. More than a couple of crushed beer cans littered around him, an empty bottle and a half of whiskey (the latter with vomit around the tip), and a shattered vodka bottle. Assuming the worst, Edna angrily clicked her heels against the ground as she got closer to her son-in-law.

“What have you done to my daughter, you truck-driving son of a bitch?!” she yelled as if completely oblivious to the fact that the man before her looked half-alive.

Gorrister let out a low grunt of pain before managing to just barely open his eyes. His vision was clouded yet he could still make out the silhouettes of- Oh God, not them. Just please not them.

He wanted to say something among the lines of ‘nice to see you too, Edna’ or ‘so Hell finally kicked you out?’ but his throat felt like it hadn’t tasted water in years. All the commotion drove Glynis outside, still in her baby-blue sleeping robe. Her expression went from confusion to pure shock as soon as her eyes met her husband’s chaotic state.

“Oh, thank God, thank Jesus, you’re alright, baby!” the old hag practically threw herself at her daughter, dragging her back into the house.

Gorrister growled quietly as he propped himself up on the back of his truck. He felt like someone was constantly hammering his head, making him grimace and clench his teeth. He felt a dull pain in his right hand and noticed the tiny shards still in place. Looking up he met Harry’s sympathetic eyes. The old man was looking him up and down, particularly the well-over medium sized vomit stain on his clothes. With a dry laugh he mumbled,

“So, I guess you won’t be sharing a drink with me, then?”

-

Edna and Harry had been staying over for nearly a week. It took every fiber in Gorrister’s being not to reply to every single remark Edna made about him to his face. At this point he was sure that that woman’s sole purpose in life was to be the snidest bitch in existence. His job already took most of his time. Time he could be spending with Glynis and trying to make amends. There was no way in hell he’d mention what happened around Edna.

She would rip his spleen out… though for once, Gorrister wouldn’t blame her. He was sure he deserved far worse.

Harry was tolerable despite being Edna’s doormat. He was an old, miserable alcoholic who would never involve himself in anything. Gorrister loathed that type of attitude, yet he would be lying if he said he didn’t feel an ounce of sympathy for the guy. Living with Edna for so long would break anyone.

Glynis had gotten quieter during their stay. She always seemed to be glancing at Gorrister when she thought he wasn’t looking. He couldn’t tell what her expression was, but he knew it was nothing good. It made his chest hurt, knowing it was his fault for whatever she was feeling. Edna glaring at him when he would so much as look back at his wife wasn’t helping.

He sighed.

“God, Glynis… Honey, I am so fucking sorry,” he whispered to himself while driving.

He was nearing their house, thinking of everything he would say to his wife as soon as Edna and Harry left. It was about 11 pm when he went to park and turn off his headlights—

He pulled on the breaks so abruptly he slammed his head against the wheel. The car behind him came to a screeching halt, honking aggressively.

Gorrister couldn’t hear.

Cold sweat enveloped his skin, suffocating it. The dull pain in his head was replaced with the sensation of broken glass piercing its way through his skull. He couldn’t tell if he was shaking madly or completely frozen. He couldn’t tell what was blinding him – his own tears, or the blaring red lights accompanied by deafening sirens.

He wasted no time in kicking the truck door open, struggling to run as his knees tried to buckle under him continuously.

The last thing he remembered was seeing Glynis’ limp body sprawled onto a carrier. His ears drowned out Edna’s strings of curses directed at him, along with the rushed voices of the nurses pushing the carrier into the ambulance. His brain was screaming-

_Oh God, oh god, oh god, ohgodohgod, why would you do this, please answer me sweetheart, please, please t **alk to me** , **say something, saysomething,anything,ohplease,ohdearalmightygod-**_

 

-

_“I didn’t make too much noise, did I honey?”_

At first, Gorrister was at a complete loss as to what she meant. Those words violently jumped inside his skull from the second he heard them. He rubbed his temples to ease his headache but emitted a groan as he had pushed a fresh bruise instead. For a 5’3’’, old and skinny hag, Edna could hit pretty hard.

None of the punches she threw at him would ever compare to the pain he felt when he last saw Glynis.

His beautiful wife, his delicate and amazing sweetheart, reduced to an empty husk with pills for brains. Her body had gotten dangerously thin over the first 3 weeks she was not allowed to see anyone. The bruises on her neck from the rope had faded completely, but Gorrister swore that he could still see them bright as day.

_‘At least she’s alive.’_

Despite everything, she was smiling. Her eyes were hallowed, but she still smiled. Gorrister spent most of their meeting time apologizing for the night he hit her. He instinctively stretched out his arms and stopped himself before he could take another step. He was about to apologize again, but his gaze was met with an even wider smile. Not by much, but wider.

Still, he knew his physical interactions with Glynis were limited – especially since there were nurses everywhere, guarding the place like watchdogs. Not to mention her tiny hands were tied behind her back as a safety precaution.  

“I love you so much, Glynis,” he spoke again, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, honey. I would rather die than hurt you, you have no idea how much ya’ mean to me- “

“Alright, your 10 minutes are up, sir.” A doctor interrupted rather rudely, receiving a glare from Gorrister.

He stared at Glynis as she was basically being dragged by her bound hands into who knows where. Before she was completely out of his sight, she managed to mumble,

 “I didn’t make too much noise, did I honey?”

Gorrister was escorted out and almost immediately felt a terrible sense of dread. He couldn’t comprehend what she meant; he thought that the pills they shoved down her throat were making her even more unstable.

As he sat on a bar stool at some honkey tonk, drinking whiskey by himself, it suddenly clicked into place. He was so used to his mind blocking out certain details of that event, it took a flash of thunder outside to remind him.

Gorrister held his hand in his hands, pushing his palms against his ears as if they would pop. His fingertips scratching his scalp underneath his blonde hair. His face glued to the bar table. He shook so violently he almost fell off the chair, and then-

He screamed.

One would say he was trying to out-scream the thunder but no matter how hard he tried, he could never block out _her_ screams. Her screams as they took her away to the room—that padded white room. The sound of an electric shock followed immediately by her agonizing screams of pain and terror.

He might have no formal education, but he was far from stupid. Electric shock therapy was mandatory and there was nothing he could do. Glynis was stuck in torment and it was **ALL HIS FAULT.**

-

Gorrister pondered. All of it. His hands glued to the bars of the cage, he could only writhe around like an animal as the cage relentlessly transmitted electric shock.


End file.
